In her mid-19th-century children’s book, Memoirs of a Doll, Julie Gouraud warns her readers not to unstitch their dolls looking for origins and inner workings ...
Tag: Public Streets
Fill the Halls: Space and Possibility in Lahore, Pakistan
Lahore today can feel like a city of security checks and gated passages, tall walls and ...
Risky Choices: Women and Cabs in Hyderabad, India
The arrival of app-based ride-hailing in Indian cities has made a significant difference in the way the middle class, especially young men and women ...
The Afronaut Archives: Reports from a Future Zambia
“Most Westerners don’t even know whereabouts in Africa we are.” So said ...
On Christopher Street Pier
This month, Public Books mourns the loss of the writer, teacher, and editor Ellis Avery to leiomyosarcoma, a rare uterine cancer. Ellis’s essay about a beloved ...
Casa Mueller’s Ghost: Displaced Afro-Caribbean History in Panama City
I’m standing on a foot-wide cement island in the middle of the bustling Avenida ...
You Can Call It “The Cuban”: Miami, Florida
The fall of 2018 in Miami saw the grand opening of an institution you would’ve thought the city already had. The ...
Smiling Donors, Bored Recipients: Free Food In America
People lining up for free food are often tired, bored, and shabbily dressed ...
Shangri-La in the Mud: Vancouver’s Squatters
If you wandered downtown Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics, perhaps you were struck by an incongruous architectural juxtaposition ...
Casa de Pueblo: Recovering Spain’s Rural Past
I wish I had an answer, but the truth is, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this dilapidated, 17th-century historic estate that has been vacant since the 1960s ...
On Finding the Turkish Fountain: Belgrade, Serbia
A visit to Belgrade is almost sure to include a walk to see the view of the ...
Street of the Setting Sun: Caracas, Venezuela
Calle el Poniente is named for the setting sun, but if you look out the window of the middle bedroom of the house with the vines, you can instead see the sun rising ...
Of Cats and Caliban: Limassol, Cyprus
After the color and clatter of fireworks on Epiphany, a quiet melancholy settles over Limassol. The cool, overcast days of winter seem to deflate this small city ...
The Pasajlar of Tunalı Hilmi Çaddesi, Ankara
Bookended by Koçatepe Mosque and Kuğulu Park, Tunalı Hilmi Çaddesi is a leafy anomaly in a city that worships concrete ...
Street Cleaning on 24th Street: Mission District, San Francisco
“You get SOMA, you’re screwed,” says a woman in leggings and a tightly drawn ...
“Detroit Is No Dry Bones”: Photos of a Surviving City
In February, just after a big snowstorm, I revisited Detroit. It was my second trip ...
Watery Roots: The Alex Haley Swimming Pool, Ithaca, NY
The writer Alex Haley was born in the city of Ithaca (just south of Ulysses, NY) ...
In Search of No. 70, Adalbertstrasse, Berlin
Bonanza Coffee Roasters is located in a quiet courtyard, tucked away from the hustle of the neighborhood of Kreuzberg in such a way that I completely miss ...
The Fortunes of Senso-ji, Tokyo
Asakusa is just west of the Sumida River in the shitamachi, the “old town” of Tokyo. Much of this part of Tokyo, including most of the venerated Buddhist temple ...
No Exit: Recreating George Tooker’s “The Subway”
Late on election night in 2016, I rode the subway home from what I had hoped would be a celebration, but the car was full and quiet and covered by a pall. Perhaps not everyone was thinking of the election ...
